


Broken Promises

by NerdyGrlWonder



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Break Up, Emotional Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 21:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2596841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyGrlWonder/pseuds/NerdyGrlWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a one off though there may be something more from it in the future. I needed to express my angst about some Abbie/Ichabod communication issues and this is what came out.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Broken Promises

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one off though there may be something more from it in the future. I needed to express my angst about some Abbie/Ichabod communication issues and this is what came out.

Usually they sat in companionable silence, but today, the silence was heavy and menacing. Every time Abbie glanced at Ichabod, she could feel a surge of anger rise and threaten to lash itself at him; but she swallowed it down, as she had been doing for months now. It was as if the books of the archives were whispering his sins to her. 

“This is useless!” Ichabod slammed one of the books from the massive pile next to him. “I can find nothing. No note, no passage on how to separate the horseman of war from Henry. That is the only way to save him.”

It was the same line, the same argument that she had listened to for weeks now. There is still goodness in him. We can save him. Katrina believes it to be so, why can’t you? All things she was tired of hearing. 

“Katrina said…”

“I don’t care what Katrina said or if Henry can be saved.”

Ichabod stopped mouth agape. His heavy brows knit together all the while his eyes probed Abbie’s face.

“I’m sorry. You don’t care? How could you possibly…”

Abbie slammed the book that was open on her lap. She had meant to read it but couldn’t think beyond her rage. 

“It’s really simple, Crane. We are fighting a war!”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Are you?” Abbie pushed herself out of her seat, knocking it over in her haste. “The apocalypse isn’t just coming, it’s half here. Henry continues to call demon after demon, on Moloch’s command, to bring Hell to Earth and you think he’s redeemable. Your wife, who for all of her boasting of great power, can’t or won’t use that power to help us defeat Henry.”

“He is our son!”

“He is the Horseman of War! The freaking Horseman of War, Crane. How many times does he have to almost kill you, almost kill me before you realize that?”  
Ichabod’s hands clenched tightly into fists and yet they still trembled. His ire was rising to match that of his partner. 

“If this wasn’t about Henry or Katrina; if this was about Jenny or Irving, you wouldn’t hesitate to try and save them.”

“If I saw that they couldn’t be saved, I would do the one thing I knew would set them free and put them out of their misery, especially if it meant saving billions of people.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes! Because it’s the truth. It’s honest. Something you seem to have forgotten about!”

The sting of Abbie’s accusation hit Ichabod with the weight of a ton of bricks. Pain radiated from the depths of his being to the heart that beat wildly in his chest. He wanted to lash out at her. He wanted her to understand where he was coming from. He wanted more than anything to refute the claim she slung so callously at him.   
All of these things he wanted but couldn’t deliver. He saw her then, as if for the first time; his lefttenant. Anger was etched on her face but there was something more, something deeper. Anguish. Her beautiful face was tired and drawn; her slight frame seemed smaller than he remembered. He had wounded her so gravely and not for a moment registered it. 

“I have buried my thoughts and my feelings for too long. I feel like I’ve been fighting this war alone. You’ve been so occupied trying to save people who don’t want saving that you forgot that you had a partner whose fate you so easily cast aside. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we may both be witnesses but that doesn’t mean we have to approach this together.”

Thunder echoed in his ears. Abbie was pulling away from him. How had he not seen the damage that he had caused to their relationship? Before he could register what he was doing, he had crossed the divide between them and grabbed her by her frail shoulders.

“Lefttenant, please. I have been preoccupied, wrongfully so, but I never meant to push you away.” The anger fled from Abbie as it had reared its head and left in its wake, a gapping void. She was spent. Once the rage had left her, all that remained was sorrow. 

“I am so sorry. I have been most lax in my steadfastness to our cause. I promise you, I will stay the course and be true to our mission from this point on.”  
Abbie stared into his ice blue eyes; the same eyes that had made the same endless promise to her for the last year and still broke them. The same eyes that had glanced back at her as he took his wife to safety and left her to suffer in Purgatory. 

Her glance moved to his large hands, wrapped tightly around her shoulders; the hands that pulled her to safety from the Weeping Lady. Those same hands had been far out of reach whenever Henry or Katrina was near. They were the hands of a once true, turned inconsistent partner. She touched those hands and moved them from her person.

“I wish that I could believe you Crane. I wish that I could trust you. But the truth is I don’t.” Abbie looked into his eyes for what she was sure was the last time and though she wanted to be strong, she gave in to the tears that began to fall. “You’re on your own Crane.”

Abbie grabbed her jacket and left the archives. The sounds of Crane’s pleading and begging for her to return to him ricocheted off of her back and fell at her feet as had all of his broken promises. She had survived so much loss before and yet, somehow, this loss devastated her beyond what she thought that she could handle. She hurt and the pain wouldn’t ebb quickly, but she would recover as she always had. She was a fighter and she deserved better.


End file.
